EDITED COLLECTIONS
Empirical Ecocriticism: Environmental Narratives for Social Change
Edited by Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, Alexa Weik von Mossner, W.P. Malecki, and Frank Hakemulder. Forthcoming from the University of Minnesota Press.
There is a growing consensus that environmental narratives can help catalyze the social change necessary to address today’s environmental crises; however, surprisingly little is known about their impact and effectiveness. In Empirical Ecocriticism, Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, Alexa Weik von Mossner, W. P. Malecki, and Frank Hakemulder combine an environmental humanities perspective with empirical methods derived from the social sciences to study the influence of environmental stories on our affects, attitudes, and actions.
Empirical Ecocriticism provides an approachable introduction to this growing field’s main methods and demonstrates their potential through case studies on topics ranging from the impact of climate fiction on readers’ willingness to engage in activism to the political empowerment that results from participating in environmental theater. Part manifesto, part toolkit, part proof of concept, and part dialogue, this introductory volume is divided into three sections: methods, case studies, and reflections. International in scope, it points toward a novel and fruitful synthesis of the environmental humanities and social sciences.
Contributors: Matthew Ballew, Yale U; Helena Bilandzic, U of Augsburg; Rebecca Dirksen, Indiana U; Greg Garrard, UBC Okanagan; Matthew H. Goldberg, Yale U; Abel Gustafson, U of Cincinnati; David I. Hanauer, Indiana U of Pennsylvania; Ursula K. Heise, UCLA; Jeremy Jimenez, SUNY Cortland; Anthony Leiserowitz, Yale U; David M. Markowitz, U of Oregon; Marcus Mayorga; Jessica Gall Myrick, Penn State U; Mary Beth Oliver, Penn State U; Yan Pang, Point Park U; Mark Pedelty, U of Minnesota; Seth A. Rosenthal, Yale U; Elja Roy, U of Memphis; Nicolai Skiveren, Aarhus U; Paul Slovic, U of Oregon; Scott Slovic, U of Idaho; Nicolette Sopcak, U of Alberta; Paul Sopcak, MacEwan U; Sara Warner, Cornell U.
Ethnic American Literatures and Critical Race Narratology
Edited by Alexa Weik von Mossner, Marijana Mikić, and Mario Grill. 2022. New York and London: Routledge.
Ethnic American Literatures and Critical Race Narratology explores the relationship between narrative, race, and ethnicity in the United States. Situated at the intersection of post-classical narratology and context-oriented approaches in race, ethnic, and cultural studies, the contributions to this edited volume interrogate the complex and varied ways in which ethnic American authors use narrative form to engage readers in issues related to race and ethnicity, along with other important identity markers such as class, religion, gender, and sexuality. Importantly, the book also explores how paying attention to the formal features of ethnic American literatures changes our understanding of narrative theory and how narrative theories can help us to think about author functions and race.
Foreword: Ethnoracial Encounters: From Myopic to Polyscopic Planetary Narratologies — Frederick Luis Aldama
Introduction: Narrative Encounters with Ethnic American Literatures — Alexa Weik von Mossner
PART 1: Narrating Race and Ethnicity across Time and Space
- Indigenous Time / Indigenous Narratives: The Political Implications of Non-Linear Time in Contemporary Native Fiction — James J. Donahue
- Time(s) of Race: Narrative Temporalities, Epistemic Storytelling, and the Human Species in Ted Chiang — Matthias Klestil
- Polychronic Narration, Trauma, Disenfranchised Grief, and Mario Alberto Zambrano’s Lotería — Mario Grill
- Whole New Worlds: An Exploration of Narrative Strategies Used in Afrodiasporic Speculative Fiction — Marlene Allen Ahmed
PART 2: Haunting Memories: Narrative, Race, and Emotion
- Emotions that Haunt: Attachment Relations in Lan Samantha Chang’s Fiction — W. Michelle Wang
- Race, Trauma, and the Emotional Legacies of Slavery in Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing — Marijana Mikić
- “There Were Strands of Darker Stories”: Reading Third-Generation Holocaust Literature as Midrash — Stella Setka
- Stories, Love, and Baklava: Narrating Food in Diana Abu-Jaber’s Culinary Memoirs — Alexa Weik von Mossner
PART 3: Race, Ethnicity, and Paratexts: Genre Structures and Author Functions
- Healing Narratives: Historical Representations in Latinx Young Adult Literature — Elizabeth Garcia
- Blood and Soil: Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony — Patrick Colm Hogan
- Metaparatextual Satire in Percival Everett’s The Book of Training and Kent Monkman’s Shame and Prejudice — Derek Maus
- Author Functions, Literary Functions, and Racial Representations or What We Talk about When We Talk about Diversifying Narrative Studies — Jennifer Ho
Empirical Ecocriticism
Thematic cluster of articles in Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment (2020), guest-edited by Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, Alexa Weik von Mossner, and W.P. Małecki.
“Empirical Ecocriticism: Environmental Texts and Empirical Methods.” Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, Alexa Weik von Mossner, W.P. Małecki
The introduction to the cluster describes the ways that empirical ecocriticism picks up on convictions about the influence of environmentally engaged literature on readers’ attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. It explains what empirical ecocriticism does and doesn’t do, how it might productively contribute to ecocriticism, and the kind of scholarship and synergies that might be possible in the future.
Featured articles:
“‘Just as in the Book”? The Influence of Literature on Readers’ Awareness of Environmental Justice and Perception of Climate Migrants” — Matthew Schneider-Mayerson
“Narrating Human and Animal Oppression: Strategic Empathy and Intersectionalism in Alice Walker’s ‘Am I Blue?’” — W.P. Małecki, Alexa Weik von Mossner and Małgorzata Dobrowolska
“Media Students, Climate Change and YouTube Celebrities: Readings of Dear Future Generations: Sorry Video Clip.” — Pat Brereton and Victoria Gomez
Moving Environments: Affect, Emotion, Ecology, and Film
Edited by Alexa Weik von Mossner. 2014. Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press.
In Moving Environments: Affect, Emotion, Ecology, and Film, international scholars investigate how films portray human emotional relationships with the more-than-human world and how such films act upon their viewers’ emotions. Emotion and affect are the basic mechanisms that connect us to our environment, shape our knowledge, and motivate our actions. Contributors explore how film represents and shapes human emotion in relation to different environments and what role time, place, and genre play in these affective processes.
- Introduction – Alexa Weik von Mossner
PART I: General and Theoretical Considerations
- Emotion and Affect in Eco-films: Cognitive and Phenomenological Approaches – David Ingram.
- Emotions of Consequence? Viewing Eco-documentaries from a Cognitive Perspective –Alexa Weik von Mossner
- Irony and Contemporary Ecocinema: Theorizing a New Affective Paradigm – Nicole Seymour
PART II: Anthropomorphism and the Non-Human in Documentary Film
- On the “Inexplicable Magic of Cinema”: Critical Anthropomorphism, Emotion, and the Wildness of Wildlife Films – Bart Welling
- Emotion and Political Environmental Documentary: Darwin’s Nightmare and The Cove –Belinda Smaill
- Documenting Animal Rights and Environmental Ethics at Sea – Robin Murray and Joseph K. Heumann
PART III: The Effects and Affects of Animation
- Animation, Realism, and the ‘Genre of Nature’ – David Whitley
- What Can a Film Do? Assessing Avatar’s Global Affects – Adrian Ivakhiv
- Animated Eco-cinema and Affect: A Case Study of Pixar’s UP – Pat Brereton
PART IV: The Affect of Place and Time
- Moving Home: Documentary Film and Other Remediations of Post-Katrina New Orleans – Janet Walker
- (Re)presenting the Ecological Indian and Eco-Activism in Contemporary Native American Film – Salma Monani
- Affect and Environment in Two Artists’ Films and a Video – Sean Cubitt
Academic reviews:
O’Dell-Chaib, Courtney. 2019. Review Moving Environments: Affect, Emotion, Ecology, and Film, edited by Alexa Weik von Mossner. Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture. 13.3 (2019) 387-389
Schwarz, Heike. 2018. Review Moving Environments: Affect, Emotion, Ecology, and Film, edited by Alexa Weik von Mossner. Anglia 136 (1): 229-231.
Blasi, Gabriella. 2017. Review Moving Environments: Affect, Emotion, Ecology, and Film, edited by Alexa Weik von Mossner. Projections: The Journal for Movies and Minds 11 (2): 109-114.
Rust, Stephen. 2016. Review Moving Environments: Affect, Emotion, Ecology, and Film, edited by Alexa Weik von Mossner. Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment 22 (4): 919-921.
Anson, April. 2016. Review Moving Environments: Affect, Emotion, Ecology, and Film, edited by Alexa Weik von Mossner. University of Toronto Quarterly 85 (3): 367-368.
Gaier, Ted. 2015. Review Moving Environments: Affect, Emotion, Ecology, and Film, edited by Alexa Weik von Mossner. The Goose 14 (1): 1-4.
Wiegand, Erin E. 2015. Review Moving Environments: Affect, Emotion, Ecology, and Film, edited by Alexa Weik von Mossner. Interdisciplinary Humanities 32 (2): 119-123.
The Anticipation of Catastrophe: Environmental Risk in North American Literature and Culture
Edited by Sylvia Mayer and Alexa Weik von Mossner
Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2014
- Introduction: The Anticipation of Catastrophe: Environmental Risk in North American Literature and Culture – Sylvia Mayer and Alexa Weik von Mossner
PART I Fictionalizing Global Climate Change
- Explorations of the Controversially Real: Risk, the Climate Change Novel, and the Narrative of Anticipation – Sylvia Mayer
- Risk, Denial and Narrative Form in Climate Change Fiction: Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior and Ilija Trojanow’s Melting Ice – Axel Goodbody
- Things We Didn’t See Coming – Riskscapes in Climate Change Fiction – Antonia Mehnert
II Representations of Nuclear Risk
- “These Rays May Be Helpful or Harmful”: The Depiction of Radium in Early 20th Century American Newspapers – Holger Kersten
- The Stuff of Fear: Emotion, Ethics, and the Materiality of Nuclear Risk in Silkwood and The China Syndrome – Alexa Weik von Mossner
- Nuclear Risk, Domestic Responsibility, and the Uses of Comedy: Elizabeth Stuckey-French’s The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady – Anna Thiemann
III Environmental Risks Across Media
- Beyond Climate Refugees: Nature, Risk and Migration in American Poetry – Christine Gerhardt
- A Sense of an Ending – Risk, Catastrophe and Precarious Humanity in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake – Karin Höpker
- “It’s theoretically possible”: Disaster and Risk in Contemporary American Film – Nicole Maruo-Schröder
- Green Gaming: Video Games and Environmental Risk – Colin Milburn
Academic reviews:
Bergthaller, Hannes. 2017. Review The Anticipation of Catastrophe: Environmental Risk in North American Literature and Culture, edited by Sylvia Mayer and Alexa Weik von Mossner. Anglia 135 (4): 768-71.
Leikam, Susanne. 2016. Review The Anticipation of Catastrophe: Environmental Risk in North American Literature and Culture, edited by Sylvia Mayer and Alexa Weik von Mossner. Amerikastudien/American Studies 61 (4).
Durczak, Johanna. 2015. Review The Anticipation of Catastrophe: Environmental Risk in North American Literature and Culture, edited by Sylvia Mayer and Alexa Weik von Mossner. Polish Journal for American Studies 9: 196-199.
Dislocations and Ecologies
Edited by Alexa Weik von Mossner and Christoph Irmscher
Special Issue of EJES: European Journal of English Studies (2012) 16.2.
- Dislocations and Ecologies: An Introduction – Alexa Weik von Mossner & Christoph Irmscher
- Reduced Ecologies: Science Fiction and the Meanings of Biological Scarcity – Ursula Heise
- Transplantations: Vegetation Imagery in the Poetry of Derek Walcott and Lorna Goodison – Marija Bergam
- ‘There was a Time’: Postcolonial Ecology and Mourning in Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Wizard of the Crow – Senayon Olaoluwa
- Husbandry, Agriculture and Ecocide Reading: Bessie Head’s When Rain Clouds Gather as a Postcolonial Gorgic — Elspeth Tulloch
- A Sense of No-Place: Avatar and the Pitfalls of Ecocentric Identification — Hannes Bergthaller
- Louis Agassiz’s Animal Flowers: Embodiment, Ethics and the Nineteenth-Century Scientific gaze – Deanna Wendel
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